Abstract

I am an artist who harvests from nature and the industrial remains of humans. As in Esiaks: "The dust shall return to earth as it was." Before becoming dust I hope to give the remains a new life. Breathing a new life into visual language is the opportunity to be shamanic which is a welcoming thought. Shamans are known as people who understand their culture and community well and respond to it by using symbols and meanings. They are also known as intermediaries between human and spirit world, people like Beuys, Kandinsky, Smithson, Rauschenberg and Duchamp themselves are known shamanic artists.

My instincts act accordingly with the advantage of language, and being deaf, allows me to rely on the most primal language- the visual language. Cave paintings had hands of shamans spray on the walls. Thousands of years later those primal senses are carried on today. Life has given me an amazing gift. Deafness has defined me as a human who wants to share life's stories as we see it. The stories come from several sources of language- visual, American Sign Language, English, and stories translated into English from places far away.

Gathering stories as I work on my artwork will bring my thesis to life and that is to be shared on 3/12/2009.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Wood sculpture--Themes, motives; Wood sculpture--Technique; Shamanism in art; Deafness--Pictorial works; Deaf artists

Publication Date

5-18-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Advisor

Leonard Urso

Advisor/Committee Member

Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez

Advisor/Committee Member

Patricia Durr

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at NB1250 .Q84 2010

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

FNAS-MFA

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